Are Communicators Overly Sensitive?

Funny, I thought that KCBS-TV was in the communication, not sensitivity training, business (“News Anchor’s Remarks Prompt Diversity Class,” Calendar, Oct. 19). Apparently the staff at the station is so hypersensitive that they can’t be told when they lack the basic communication skills in English, which I always thought were prerequisite to their jobs.

Why is it “insensitive and offensive” to complain if a Cuban American scriptwriter for an English-language TV station has “less than adequate English skills”? The proper use of language is the tool of the journalistic profession. To state that she writes as though she only knew “English as a second language” is not “a slur against the ethnicity of the employee,” but a reasonable complaint about her ability to satisfactorily do the job for which she was ostensibly hired, which was to write scripts in correct English. Why was she hired in the first place?

“Diversity” is really a code or buzzword, a euphemism for proportional representation by race, ethnicity and sex. It refers to a de facto but unexpressed quota system, in which each interest group is given its proportional share of whatever pie is to be divided--jobs, school admissions, contracts--all in the goal of fostering diversity. But in this quest for diversity, no attention is paid to the true diversity distinguishing one individual from another, such as religion, intellect, ideology, politics--all facets of individualism over which a person exercises choice. Only the immutable characteristics of race, ethnicity and sex, which the individual cannot choose, are deemed worthy of inclusion by the social engineers, and group identity assumes more worth than individual merit. This is a pernicious concept.

CARL PEARLSTON

Torrance

Maybe John Culliton, general manager of KCBS-TV, as well as his counterparts at other television stations might be wise to hire a few more “English as a second language” news writers. They can’t do worse than the native English million-dollar anchors who describe suspects in the interminable freeway chases as “out of the vehicle and now laying on the freeway” (one wonders what--eggs, bricks?).

Aside from this failure to distinguish between transitive and intransitive verbs (to lay, to lie) many English-first language anchors follow up with “between he and I,” “each member of the family have their. . . .” Although this may be common usage among the average citizenry and acceptable, anchors making (not necessarily earning) salaries of at least six figures should be held more accountable.

Maybe a few classes in ESL for anchors are in order.

JOSEPH M. PUIG

Van Nuys